SC09: Data Transformation at iWARP Speed

[Jordache22222]

Cool, but isn't it potentially easier to sniff&hack due to reduced layering?

[msfergo1]

@Jordache22222

In many ways 10GigE RDMA is harder to hack and it's definitely not easier. When using iWarp over 10GigE, the data is transported using TCP just like any other application traffic. The difference is that the hardware on the NIC efficiently manages all the TCP connections and does not require any CPU time or input from the OS.

[Jordache22222]

@msfergo1 Thank you for replying! It is a cool solution indeed and it is porobably very useful for the purpose presented here. 2 more questions:

1) How would it work with regular end machines (w/ regular NIC). Ss the end user supposed to use the same kind of NIC or is it a s/w emulation supposed to be used instead?

2) Will be this new architecture widely adopted ever or is just another nice solution addressing a particular customer?

[Jordache22222]

Concerning intrusion I was thinking that if a flaw is found (hypothetically), it would be hard to ask the customer replace all the cards to fix the issue.

[msfergo1]

@Jordache22222

1. RDMA does not work with regular 10GigE NICs and there are no 1GigE NICs with RDMA/iWarp support at all. There are currently only three types of 10GigE cards that support RDMA with Intel NetEffect being one. It will likely be a year or more before you start to see RDMA capabilities being available on motherboard based 10GigE NICs.

[msfergo1]

@Jordache22222

2. I feel RDMA has a very strong future. General purpose CPUs are getting more cores but not faster clocks, so they need to offload more and more common (if mundane) processing features to dedicated hardware components such as these 10GigE NICs.

[msfergo1]

@Jordache22222

Customers are not going to use this technology for general purpose computing for many years but in the meantime, users that require the ultimate in network performance for their latency sensitive applications will make the investment in the latest technology to gain that competitive edge.

[Jordache22222]

Thank you for the details. I hope more customers will adhere to this new solution and a unique standard will be adopted in the near future to ease the large scale penetration.

[shaolindreams]

Warp factor 10 Mr. Sulu.